Well, needed to move a tank out of the baby's room and that meant breaking down a reef. The Manzigumi was redone to another location in the house and I used all the same stuff from the 1st attempt. Well, 3 new pieces of wood, but most of the hardscape materials are the same. I also added about 5 Gal worth of Lava rock in mesh bag, I could see any good reason to have to use more new ADA AS, this saved me a couple of bags for basically 1-2$. The central core is the lava rock. I only used 60% of the ADA As from the old manzigumi display, so it was quite a savings. It was dead space. The tank will have E belem hairgrass only. Maybe some moss/Mini pellia etc or a few Buce's in the darker shadows I'm going to get it planted later this week, I got the filters running and water in it tonight. I am going to run it cooler, around 76 or so. I think I'll add a lot of high grade CRS SSS shrimp and go with a South East Asia theme. This will be a relatively easy tank to maintain and keep. The slope is very steep, but the light is fairly even along the sloping. There are 4 viewing sides, so while this might seem like challenge, I've done a lot of tanks with this placement and I strongly prefer this positioning. The dining table is this view: The main view folks look for the FTS is this: Top and diagonal view folks see walking towards it: I might add Botia sidthimunki again, I had few issues with them as long as they were fed. There are many ample dark caves and hiding spots for any cryptic species. I have a fair amount of Hair grass coming this week, so it 'll be good to really crank the CO2 and good light and water changes for the next few weeks(8 weeks typically, 3x a week water change, 60-80%). This hard scape is much better than the old one, more access and a steeper slope, and of course, more viewing sides/angles etc.
Tom the hardscape looks great. I can see the upper, mid and lower plains in the hardscape in the second photo. Can't wait to see it planted with the E belem hairgrass which will make the hardscape really stand out. Dan
There will be some nice pathways connecting each level/tier. I have 6 bulbs avail with the lighting, but will only use 2 mostly, then turn on the other 4 for maybe 1 hour or so and turn those other 2 off. This is get more angles of light to strike more area and shadows to get thicker more even growth. I'll likely only run the light at 30-50% full power also. So for the most part, it'll run at 50W for 70gal except for maybe 1 hour where it'll run about 80W for 70 Gal. But the PAR will be pretty good. Better than LED at the same Watts, but you could never get a decent spread/evenness of light using LED's like that.
wonderful work...I hate having to move a tank. Keep us posted with more pics of this intriging layout!
nice one Tom, looking forward to see it planted Love HG carpets, they are really easy to maintain and nice to look at and the best is - you can shape them
Capitol, Cascade also, most rock and soil places stock 3/4" lava in yard/ton amounts, grab a bag and shovel :idea:
The Belem is even nicer, stays so nice and short. Folks also are willing to pay for it, but I'll not be cutting sod much out of this tank. Mostly for the SSS CRS's and the the fishes. And to highlight the use of the Manzi burl as a hardscape material.
I adjusted a few minor things, planted the belem hair grass, adjusted the bulbs and pulled the blues and added some Zoomeds this time on the outside bank. Added the CO2 and light timing from 2 pm till 10 pm total time with a 2 hour ramp up to 50% full power, then after 4 hours of that, ramp down from 50% to 0%. CO2 shuts off 1 hour before 0% lighting(On only for 7 hours of the 8 hour light cycle). Will add Amano shrimp next week.
This is stunning hardscape. What kind of light do you use. could we get a photo shot of the full setup?
yeah that Manzi burl's contours are epic, the scape will be very surreal and yes l'm with Flo, very Mador'esk
this is beautiful. just the hardscape alone is very nice. really hope i can do something like this one day. very nice layout.
Planted the Belem hair grass. I got some nice high grade without moss and algae etc from a local guy for some starougyne which I have a lot of. This tank will be a low labor/slower growth tank, so very different than the 120 Gal. I'll be using about 40% the light, and perhaps even less. I changed the bulbs to 2 GE starcoats, 2 Zoomed plant, 2 ATI blue special. Since I'll be adding SSS grade CRS's, these will contrast very well against the dark wood and the grass. Belem hair grass needs no trimming, about the easiest long term plant for foregrounds. There are holes in the wood and angles you cannot see from pics. So in person, you get a better feel for the wood display. Same type of set up as the 120 Gal tank, wet/dry etc, this is also a good reason why not adding power sand is a good idea, it would have cost me another 200$ for new ADA AS/powersand. I was able to reuse this without straining and picking it out powersand pumic. One good scratch on a 1000$ starfire tank will make that argument go away real real fast:idea: ADA AS alone will not scratch the glass. I'm still undecided about the fish, only that they do not eat shrimp or jump out. I had Botia sidthimunkii in the past, they did no harm to the shrimps and were fed well. Perhaps they ate a few, but the population kept increasing in size, started with 12 SS, ended up with about 50 about a year later. This tank will be about 2 C cooler though.
With hair grass, this grass came out of a small mini L ADA tank local club member's, and ended up filling out fairly well this tank's scape, I'd prefer about 3x this density though, but good clean healthy grass is well worth it.
Hey Tom, very cool :113:. i like the minimalistic look of the hg. i would like to see riccardia planted at some spots of the wood. i think it would give a nice dark green contrast to the bright green of the hg.
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